I thought to
myself, “Huh, I want to be a dad, and
I like video games with cute concepts, so this seems right up my alley!”
After
clicking three different links to get to the actual download (which is free, by
the way), I downloaded it, opened Winrar, closed the window that demanded that
I purchase Winrar even though it’s already fully functional on my computer
without paying money, unzipped the file for
free (screw you, winrar) and played the game!
Now, I’m
sure you guys know that, with a name like “I’m So Lonely Reviews,” I don’t have
the cleanest apartment. When I got to the main menu screen, an evil cloud of lonely dust flew up from my keyboard and attacked my face. In a flurry of sensory overload mid-sneeze,
I pummeled my hands wildly against my keyboard. After I
opened my eyes and rubbed the space between my upper lip and my lower nose, I
found that I had beaten the entire game. I was already back at the main menu.
…let’s talk
about the story, shall we? I hope you have
a comfortable chair handy!
STORY
You’re a
robot arm who’s sick of his life at the factory and you decide to quit your job
and adopt a child. You then do so and feed him breakfast.
THE.
END.
I’m not
kidding, folks. I get it, it’s a free game made by approximately three quarters
of a person, but this…is just unfinished. Not just the story, the concept, or
the basics of the gameplay. It feels legitimately unfinished. I checked to
see if it's in early access or something, but it isn’t.
Some of yous
might be criticizing me for spoiling the entire game for you in two sentences,
but I feel the need to mention that the tumblr post that brought me to the game
had only three .gifs from it, and
they gave away every scene in the game save for the unplayable prologue. So, in reality, the
marketing for this product spoiled everything about it. In other news, the sky
is blue and bears haven’t yet migrated into our cities to use our lavatories.
CHARACTERS
Robot Arm Dad
 |
| fork you |
You’re a robot arm who’s sick of
his life at the fac- oh wait, I already said this. While it’s definitely
refreshing to see a protagonist in a video game who actually wants to quit his
job to father children (also known as the
feminist from the mirror universe), I get the feeling that this is less
because the developers wanted to encourage parenthood in a society where
commitment and sexual reproduction are treated like something people only do
when they’re in their forties and decide that they wouldn’t mind having a kid
with no legs and dying before their two-limbed genetic disaster can graduate
high school *inhales* and more
because Octodad was a popular game.
Fox Kid
 |
| the emotional climax of "We Love You, Robo-Dad" |
I mean, I don’t
know. He’s a kid that you adopt, and you can knock him over when you feed him
an apple.
Hand That Holds the Adoption Papers
 |
| it's freakin' clipart because i don't need this |
Easily a
contender for a spot on 2018’s best character list. It might not be animated or
even drawn by a member of the development team, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s stalwart, humble, and stiff
as a stone in both its principles and just in general.
GAMEPLAY
This is the
worst offender of this game. I have a feeling that the “co-op” capabilities were
only stated in the release in an attempt to try to pad out the runtime of the
game to maybe two sneezes in place of
one, but I have no proof of that.
The short length of the game isn’t the main issue. It’s the presentation. When I
beat the game, it sent me immediately back to the title screen without so much
as a “The End” card. I thought I screwed up something, so I started the game up
again to see if there were any Doki-Doki
Literature Club-style secrets (which, I feel the need to mention, is a free
to play game that’s totally worth your time), but there weren’t.
The gameplay
itself isn’t even that funny. It was somewhat
amusing when I accidentally bopped my fox son in the face with the apple, but the
entire gameplay is just one joke. Octodad
took its premise to extremes and wrote a hilarious story and dialogue to keep it
interesting. It evolved its gameplay from picking up a piece of toast (or
something, I don’t remember the specifics of the beginning) to elaborate
gymnastics through a “the floor is lava” section in the climax. Its gameplay felt
smooth and intuitive once you grew accustomed to the controls. You don’t get that
chance with this game because it’s over so quickly and the controls are arbitrarily
wonky as opposed to wonky with regards to in-game physics.
Oh, and the “Options”
part of the main menu doesn’t work. I clicked on it and nothing happened. This
is listed as the “Full Game” in the tumblr marketing campaign.
Update: I
was legitimately worried that I missed out on something, so I went back in again and tried to beat it. I got to the
quintessential “beat your child to death with an apple” scene and…the collisions
messed up. The apple and the fork started vibrating and disconnecting from the
robot arm. I couldn’t control it. The fact that a product this bare-bones and
lackluster has glitches in it is
absolutely stunning to me. I’m taking off an extra point just for this, screw
the rules.
BEAR DENSITY
There aren’t
any bears in this game.
SOUNDTRACK
I don’t even
remember if there was music in this game, and I played it about ten minutes
ago. It doesn’t detract from the game, I guess.
GRAPHICS
Somehow
reminiscent of Noggin and the
annoying animated bits of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus that British people seem to love and American people seem to
hate. So, it gives me happy nostalgia on one half, and memories of awkwardly
unfunny magazine cutouts of nude European women and squat police constables on
the other half. I’d say it balances out.
CONCLUSION
LOOK AT JURASSIC HEART. It’s a free to play game
that was made in two days by two
people for fun. That’s half of the number
of people that made We Love You, Robo Dad.
The kicker? It was also longer and
left me smiling at the end. The gameplay was even better, and it was a visual novel.
People are
going to say, “Well, Jombo, you’re being unfair! These people didn’t want to
make a super important AAA game with high-def graphics and detailed characters
and story!” To you I say this: Nobody
should set out to make an “okay” product. That’s what happens with almost every
indie game on Steam. Wuppo, Caveblazers, and that one game that was
so immeasurably dull and unimaginative that I will not give it the satisfaction
of looking up its name were all games that had little intention of creating
something that will stay with the player for days after playing it. Well, Wuppo was actually pretty memorable…it
just wasn’t my cup of tea. And the carnival level was garbage. BUT ANYWAY, the
point is this: This game is less
significant than any of these other games that I’ve listed. I’m only going to
remember it by the shock I experienced after playing a four-minute long homework
assignment for a video game making class. Is it a very well-made homework assignment? Yes, it is. NO, IT ISN'T. IT HAS GLITCHES IN IT. BOOOO! Does it have any
business peddling itself as a finished product in a world where numerous
free-to-play games exist that have hours
of potential play time? No.
I mean, the
concept behind this game is genius! Imagine the possibilities! The Fox Son
grows up into a teenager and you have to drive him and his date to prom, he
gets married and you have to throw birdseed at him on their way to the car, you
experience empty nest syndrome and have to lift a tissue to your face to wipe
away the tears, the list goes on! And they didn’t. even. do anything with it. This is some equivalent of one of those "wonky physics" simulators on Steam that relies on the wonky physics to generate hilarity rather than any especially clever writing or setups.
In short:
Play literally any other game. Heck, purchase Speed Dating for Ghosts for all I care. It might have unnecessary Christian-bashing
and liters of untapped potential, but at least it took its core concept and
made something out of it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Characters: 0 Freakin’…you adopt a kid and knock ‘im over…
Story: -2
I mean, that’s it…
Gameplay: -3 …you purchase a kid…and you smack ‘im in
the face with an apple
Soundtrack: 0 …and then the game’s over…
Graphics: 0 …I could have started that assignment that’s due Wednesday…
Bear Density: -5
…but I didn’t…I took time out of my weekend to write this…
Final Score: -10/10
I hope you
guys got a good grade on this assignment. Because I’m certainly not going to give
you one.
No comments:
Post a Comment